Film
The Cineforum is dead
Can you imagine a Toronto without posters advertising, "What I learned from LSD" and "Darkside of Oz"?
Well, it may soon become a reality.
Reg Hartt's Cineforum, which has been running at several venues since 1968, is being shut down for good. Run primarily out of Hartt's home, the Cineforum has been a place for Torontonians to watch private screenings of films and participate in discussions for $10 a day.
It was shut down for the first time back in the 1990s.
"The first time the Cineforum was shut down I sat here drinking beer, watching television, thinking about finding a venue where I could continue my programs and reflecting on how boring everything was going to be," Hartt said in an email to Mayor Miller. Luckily, it was resurrected with the help of Hartt's friend Jane Jacobs (see the bottom of the post for a fan latter from Jacobs to Hartt).
But of course, that wasn't the end. In the spring, Hartt received a notice of violation from the city's Licensing and Standards division for operating a theatre out of his home. According to NOW Magazine, it was likely that someone issued a complaint. "The city doesn't go rooting out people who are violating zoning," said Licensing and Standards chair Howard Moscoe.
Then, this past Friday, another individual came from Municipal Licensing and Standards and informed Hartt that a letter had been sent to his landlord threatening legal action unless the program was shut down. So it will be shut down.
"The Cineforum is dead. It is going to stay dead," Hartt wrote.
"There is someone who wanted it killed. They succeeded. They used the city has their knife but it was their hand that used it. I don't really care whose hand held the knife."
At the end of a long letter to Mayor David Miller, Harrt concludes with the following:
"What were you banned for?" I will be asked.
"For welcoming strangers into my house," I will reply.
Lead photo by ampro of Flickr.
Discussion
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Admittedly paying money to watch films in someone's living room seems bizarre... but his pre-film monologues were insightful and the collective sense of community is rare and precious.
Community is something that doesn't exist in today's society. When was the last time you met your neighbour?!!
Bring back Cineforum!! Free Reg!
Of course, I'm sure he declared the admission income on his income taxes. Surrrrrrrrre he did.
Good riddance.
For those who went there at his house, or different clubs or back at Mercer St or way back in time at Innis and gained from it all, this is a body blow, for those of you who never went for whatever reason,I am sad for you, you won't know what you've missed, for those who say good riddance-your opinion is yours but try to be less mean spirited.
Reg, BlogTO - you have our swords.
http://www.switchvertising.com/
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So much f'ing garbage produced by this guy over the years - thousands and thousands of posters for what - 8 people to watch a movie in his living room?
Of course, I'm sure he declared the admission income on his income taxes. Surrrrrrrrre he did.
Good riddance.
You have many supporters in this city. If we can help in any way in reclaiming your theatre back, let us know.
I don't know I used to go to rep cinemas and I liked them as well. Until I got DVD. I also go to Cinematheque and a few other cinames, but Reg Hartt just never appealed to me. I don't know if I am sorry to see him go - maybe he belonged to some other era?
That said, Hartt is a myopic, narcissistic "let me school you with my brilliant intellect" prick and I'll be glad when his insufferable posturing as an icon or an "institution" or a counter-cultural revolutionary martyr-sage is received by a vastly smaller audience of adoring film student guppies.
Dude's ego is bigger than a whale and has five times the blowholes, just saying.
As Toronto loses more and more of its charm with every passing day, things like "Cineforum" - agree with it or no - bring interest and artistic value to an otherwise increasingly corporate table.
If you don't like flyers go live in the suburbs, if you don't like strange characters, go live in the suburbs, if you don't like strange films, go live in the suburbs. If you hate other people, go live in a shack in the woods. Toronto needs more odd ball, but harmless citizens. Toronto is small but don't discount it, we have people like this guy, one of this guy with his craziness equals 20 people living in Nowhereville.
Christ, don't go to the damn thing if you don't like it.
I went to one of his Looney Tunes nights when I was in university in the '80's. Dude was intense, but it was interesting stuff, and it's hard to fault someone that passionate about something.
What he was doing was sort of iconic for this town, but I'm not putting him on any pedestals. By the same token, he doesn't deserve people shitting on him either. He was just a guy wanting to share stuff with people that they probably wouldn't otherwise have had a chance to experience. These days, people have a little more of a chance, as internet video has advanced. He hardly made a ton of cash from the times he showed anything vaguely copyrighted, and I don't think he caused anyone any harm in general.
I'm hoping equally passionate people can utilize the Underground Cinema and the internet and who-knows-what-else to pick up the torch and share ideas they find cool. Maybe they'll even put up posters about it.
Lol ! it's funny to read stale,cheesy,unoriginal
people talk shit about Reg Hartt, what have they ever done !
he has lived exactly what he tries to inspire
the people who attend his programs to do !
he has lived his own way, He is a true original !
He has put countless people on to films
they never would have seen otherwise, & he did
without funding from the government (like the Cinemathique) since the late 60's !
He does what he does for the love of cinema & art.
He has encouraged an abundance of young artists to
keep doing what they are doing.
I think what is being done to him now is pathetic.
Toronto needs more people like Reg Hartt.
BUt I am sure He will Keep Doing what he loves.
Other than that, what is there else to do? Go to a night club? Good luck, unless you want to go have a few beers at the Cloverdale Mall location of The Keg. Want to watch a movie other than blockbusters (not that there's anything wrong with that)? Sorry, got to get on the bus for the subway downtown! Want to go to a poetry reading? Same thing! Dancing? Ditto! Street festivals? Nothing doing (anything like that has to be held in a park, or in the parking lot of a mall!) And places like Cineforum? Affording a semi-detached house or house like I used to live in is hard; holding anything like a film screening is harder still. <i>That's why</i> suburbia sucks, and why I wish my parents had bought a house nearby around Parkdale in 1970 rather than move out to Willowdale <i>before they had a car</i>! Suburbia is now just going to end up like the inner city of most North American cities one day-looking like shit compared to downtown because of the white flight.
As it is, I will miss Cineforum, and hope that Reg takes up the offer made at NOW Magazines online forum to have him move to Montreal and set up there. Or any city where there's no bullshit law forbidding film screenings in a home.